Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Illegal Immigration At The Tipping Point





ONE of the former Mrs Bunyip’s deficiencies of character was an absolute inability to grasp the physics of floating objects. The wind would be on the beam, the boat heeling and going like the clappers and somehow, for reasons formerly attributed to suppressed memories of bath-time trauma, she would gravitate to the lee’s lowest corner. More than once, strong words, and sometimes a strong arm, were needed to get her up on the appropriate gunwale, where the merciful breeze often drowned the whine that stinky power boats with flash toilets are what civilised people get about on. Many times, late at night at the mooring, there was comfort in the thought that she was elsewhere and the Professor’s enthusiasm for splicing could be pursued without distraction.

Why an otherwise intelligent woman should have had this problem with water remained a mystery until this week, when the truth was suggested and, quite possibly, revealed entirely. Far from the undiluted Italian heritage she always claimed, it now seems a near certainty that the Moors and dusky types who visited Sicily and other bits at the boot’s southern end bequeathed a genetic predisposition to folly on the water. The Normans also passed through, of course, but their Viking heritage must have been obliterated by the dirt of the desert.

While still a theory, the capsize of the latest leaky boatload of illegal aliens off Christmas Island certainly suggests that waterborne idiocy is a distinctive trait of those from parts where the rigs are few and mostly lanteen. The details are sketchy and will remain so until the official inquiry, but one doesn’t need to stretch speculation too far to guess what happened: Having thrown away their passports, some half a million dollars’ worth of contraband human cargo spied the RAN’s approaching taxi service and dashed en masse to the hailing beam, probably port given the boat’s point of departure and intended destination. Simple physics asserted itself, the boat bottled, leaving many to splash about and adding two more bodies to our Prime Minister’s latest offerings on the altar of her wilful refusal to safeguard the nation’s borders.

It is a matter for some concern. The likes of Stuart Rintoul, refugee advocate and sexton of the watery graves his nostrums have helped to fill, are always saying that the immense effort to reach Australia is an indication that illegal aliens are get-up-goers who will do much for their adopted homeland. That the getting up and going is mostly to Centrelink appears to trouble him not at all.

But someone has to worry about the quality of our latest New Australians, for it seems they can do nothing right. Not only do they sink their wretched boats – accidentally or on purpose, the result is the same – they also seem incapable of topping themselves with anything approaching a reliable efficiency. It is a relatively simple matter to organise rope, chair and beam, but if press reports are any indication, aspiring residents of our Housing Commission towers prefer instead to guzzle detergent and Pine-O-Clean. Let us hope Draino is not made available, as suicide attempts might lead to accidental deaths.

John Howard was much maligned for suggesting that new arrivals should demonstrate a familiarity with Australian culture and history before being granted citizenship. A good suggestion so far as it went, it behooves us in light of recent events to expand the scope of questions beyond Donald Bradman’s batting average and the dimensions of our PM’s gusset. Some multiple-choicers about other notable figures -- water wally Harold Holt and point-blank marksman Adam Lindsay Gordon, for instance – would do much to assure newcomers that they already have something in common with those waiting to welcome them.

20 comments:

  1. You're back! Allah be praised!

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  2. The Anointed Trio, the Three Wise Wallys have come along as a diversion and said that ALL their recommendations must be implemented, including the stupid Malaysia swap.
    They were and are a totally surplus triumvirate, an appendix wagging the dog. We had a a working model which was dismantled as thoroughly as the rocks dismantled that vessel which unhappily made landfall in a squall.
    No amount of wriggling, dancing and squealing by this trio of tragedians can change that, or transmute into something new and effective a bagful of measures made up by the government with the sole purpose of denying that what they destroyed was in fact a good system.

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  3. And your character recognition system still stinks, but it's good to have you back on deck!

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  4. Marvellous, thank you. See you next time.

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  5. Far out Bunyip you have been missed. Such extended absences are hard to take.

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  6. Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.March 27, 2013 at 2:19 PM

    Professor, at last we commenters who love the English language, properly used and put to its full imaginative flight, may feast at your table again.

    The famine has been dreadful. In your absense, the Labor locusts have crept across the fields eating our country out of its bountiful produce, crawling into every crevice of our institutional and constitutional fabric, in fact, getting right up our noses. They have even tried to eliminate the lifeblood of our language and expression; our freedom of speech and writing itself. Thankfully, they were subtly slaughtered by our rearguard; in their hubristic ambitions, they over-reached. They are reduced now to eating each other. You may have noticed.

    Come September though, we are expecting a bumper harvest, and we are organising for it a magnificent Harvest Festival. As self-appointed celebrant for this occasion, I cordially invite you to prepare your greatest oration for the event.

    Until then though, keep that quill busy and sharpened.





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  7. I am disappointed to see that Sarah Hanson-Hyphen hasn't called for the Australian Literature Council to fund an Arabic version of "Safe Boating for Muzzies" so that Canberra-based immigration agents and part-time shopping trolley collectors can include this in their promotional materials.

    You know it is the compassionate thing to do.

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  8. Welcome to 2013.
    You certainly have a surfeit of topics to deal with in this election year.
    Great start!
    It seems the illegal alien issue is being overshadowed by all the other inanities of this govt.

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  9. Finally......Bolt, Blair AND Bunyip; just as it should be. Glad you're back, Prof.

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  10. so glad to see you back! i clicked my bookmark for your blog as i do every day, expecting to see "funky ableist prejudice" for the 90th time, and i closed the tab out of habit before registering that the title of the blog post was new!

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  11. Professor, thank you. Now that's what I call clarity, perhaps you could bottle some of it and send a sample along to that bespectacled spectacle who keeps reminding us that she's the Prime Minister, because of course few have ever accepted or believed it.

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  12. PhillipGeorge(c)2013March 28, 2013 at 12:34 AM

    Professor, I am shitty with you. How dare you not intermittently throw together some perfunctory pretentious claptrap just to shame humiliate and exasperate the jaundiced walking dead of neo liberal decay/ resident journalists at the Age and ABC. Anything, even half as good as your worst posts are all that's sufficient to lay barren the intellectual property rights of the progressive writ.

    To the Tower, shackles, manacles, pillory, whatever it takes to keep you at a keyboard. Lash him down.

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  13. Thank goodness you're back, mate.

    I was really beginning to worry. Day after day, funky, ableist etc.
    Hope all is well at the billabong.

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  14. Welcome back perfesser! I must say that extended absences do cause a bit of concern. 'specially if they happen without notice! Having said that, a voice of reason is something which (except for notable exceptions) has been sadly lacking for the past few months! It's good to have that back again.

    Cheers

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  15. Bunyip returns! Thank you, God.

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  16. Keep posting.
    Some of us stay sane by reading this stuff!

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  17. Invite the world, Invade the worldMarch 30, 2013 at 6:52 PM

    What's your problem with Adam Lindsay Gordon, sorry, I don't understand that.

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  18. Invite the world, Invade the worldMarch 30, 2013 at 7:00 PM

    Ah, I get it.

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